When the five-member Board of the Alameda Unified School District selected Kirsten Vital as the new superintendent in 2009, they chose someone from outside their tight-knit community. Board Trustee Margie Sherratt thought Vital was chosen to "get us moving," to be a change agent on closing the achievement gap. Vital, in her initial conversations with the Board heard their dissatisfaction with the status quo despite the fact that the majority of Alameda students were doing well academically. How truly difficult the budget challenges were would become painfully clear over the course of the next two years. By 2009-2010, per pupil expenditure sank to $4,946 and budget forecasts projected a $25.2 million deficit--nearly one-third of the district's budget--by 2013. What district leaders did both to address the fiscal crisis and create large scale change in the district is a story of how district leaders engaged with the community in ways that built on-going support for the work of the school system and consensus around what schools should be for every child in the district. (Contains 12 footnotes.)